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UK private equity firm BC Partners has now committed three quarters of its latest fund – an important threshold for buyout firms looking to return to the fundraising market.

BC Partners bought French cleaning products firm Spotless yesterday for about €600m ($823m) from Axa Private Equity, the buyout arm of the French insurer, according to two people familiar with the deal. It used roughly 50% equity, around €300m, one of the people said, which takes its €5.8bn 2005 fund to roughly 75% committed.

It is understood that the firm does not plan to come back to fundraising right away, and is still looking to return to market with attempts to raise €5.8bn for a fund in the second half of this year, two people familiar with the fundraising efforts said.

BC Partners was not immediately available for comment.

The fundraising will be the second largest launched since the collapse of Lehman Brothers plunged markets into turmoil, according to data provider Preqin. The largest fund launched since September 2008 is the $8.8bn (€6.4bn) fund raised by US buyout firm Hellman and Friedman.

However, BC Partners does not have anything in its fund documentation which compels it to return to investors once it has reached the traditional fundraising threshold, one person familiar with the matter said.

Axa more than doubled the value of its undisclosed investment in the company over five years, according to a person close to the firm. Every Spotless employee which is not a shareholder will receive a bonus equivalent to two months’ salary following the completion of the transaction, an Axa statement said today. The company has more than 300 employees.

Philippe Poletti, head of mid cap buyouts at Axa Private Equity, said the buyout was a partly a success because the strength of his firm’s initial plan for the company.

He said: “We initially identified eight acquisition targets and were lucky at the end of the day to convert most of them. Most of the time when you buy a business you have an equity story and it’s not always the case that what happens is what you anticipated. In this case we had identified all the targets already”.

Axa bought Spotless for €150m in 2005, and made six acquisitions for the company.